Kilchoman expands core offerings
Kilchoman Distillery has just announced the release of a new edition of whiskey to join the distillery's entry-level offerings.
Kilchoman Batch Strength (57% vol.) is a peaty, smoky single malt whisky matured in bourbon barrels, oloroso sherry butt and re-fired red wine casks. Bottled without dilution, as a beverage of such strength as resulted after buying all the barrels, without cold filtering and without caramel coloring.
Kilchoman Batch Strength, as befits a whisky from Kilchoman, it was created on a base of barley malt smoked with peat to a level of 50 ppm. In its aroma we can expect notes of red fruits, fresh cherries, heather flowers and intense peat smoke. In the taste we should expect accents of toffee, spice, vanilla and peat smoke. Long wine is characterized by silky viscosity and notes of yeast cakes, butter and honey.
Available in the distillery's online store, the whisky costs £76 at retail. Manufacturer announces deliveries to specialty whisky stores any day now.
The term "batch strength" is a creative development of the popular "cask strength," which is whisky bottled without prior dilution, at the strength at which it leaves the barrel after many years of maturation. However, while "cask strength" suggests the strength of a single cask and usually refers to such editions, or so-called "single cask," in this case we are dealing with a multi-barrel blend, and the strength obtained before bottling is the resultant of the strength of the individual barrels used in the blend. A similar term - and a similar technique of putting together successive editions - is also used by, for example, the Tamdhu distillery from Speyside.
Kilchoman Distillery hereby expands its core offering. The Batch Strength edition permanently joins the two previous editions that have been continuously on offer from the manufacturer - Machir Bay and Sanaig. In addition, Kilchoman has editions of Loch Gorm and 100 Islay on offer, but these are limited editions, with new releases appearing time and time again. Often, however, these are not part of the permanent offer.
Kilchoman was launched in 2005, but shortly after launch, in 2006, a fire broke out in the malt drying room, which stopped production for the rest of the year. Kilchoman was then the eighth distillery on the island of Islay, famous for its peaty, smoky whiskies. The idea behind its founders was to return to the traditional model of whisky production in Scotland, where the churning of alcohol is an additional occupation on the farm, and excess grain, harvested from the fields belonging to the farm, is used in its production. Hence the idea to start your own malting plant and run production entirely on the farm. This idea, however, rather quickly proved to be impractical or even unrealistic.
Operating at Rockside Farm, the distillery is the smallest whiskey production facility on Islay, but in 2019 there was a significant investment in production capacity, which was virtually doubled by the installation of a second pair of alembics and more fermentation vats. However, with Ardbeg, second from last in production volume, also doubling in size, Kilchoman still remains the smallest Scotch whisky maker on Islay. It is also the only distillery on the island so far that is not in close proximity to the sea.
There is a store and Visitor Center on the distillery's premises, offering an extensive tour and tasting program.
The current offerings of the House of Whisky Online include a number of whisky editions from Kilchoman, including both those from the basic offering and several special, limited editions. Please visit.
[28.03.2024 / photo: Kilchoman]